Typical Bill O’Reilly. Dancing around points Moore makes and tries to change the subject when Michael Moore tries to answer his many questions with a good answer. If O’Reilly is the public voice arguing for conservative politics, then you all are in much worse shape than I thought. Of course Michael Moore sounds incoherent…let’s look at some examples:
[quote]M: Well, I
Imaniou, I wonder if you’re looking at the same text I am? Calling your interpretation casuistry is an insult to casuistry.
First of all, and not meaning to sound too patronizing, though it’s difficult when addressing you in regard to what you’ve said, there is no “you all” monolithic conservative faction in this thread, and the implication that I would align myself with O’Reilly is rather block-headed. Indeed, the point of my first posting was that both O’Reilly and Moore, who are both lockstep nutbars equidistant from the political center, are mostly shooting blanks. It is clear, however, that O’Reilly, in this instance, at least has something credible to say.
You criticize O’Reilly for not seeing Moore’s movie, but they are addressing specific issues raised in the movie which are well known to both parties. One does not need to see the movie to discuss these issues. Moore not only makes the tiresome, insipid claim that Bush told “the whole country…that there was some sort of connection between Saddam Hussein and September 11th,” but to O’Reilly’s demur he lamely protests that “I show all that in the movie.”
Is the fact that Moore has made a movie the substance of his argument here? Even Lefty reviewers, across the board, lambaste Moore for how incoherent his movie is, how shoddily he skews the facts (though they proceed to say that one should see it anyway, as it’s apparently “important”). Were you to write a book about the origins of playdough, and after publishing it were I to debate you on a point of fact concerning said origins, would you respond to my charge by simply saying that “you show all that in the book?”
Lame.
You accuse O’Reilly of dodging the question of whether or not he would sacrifice his child to remove one of the other 30 brutal dictators on this planet. But the question itself is classic Moore, in that it is wilfully misleading. First of all, the “30 dictators” construction is specious, as only one is worse than Saddam was–Kim Jong-Il. None of the others are comparable in terms of brutality and danger, both within and without their countries. And the whole strategic point of the war in Iraq, which O’Reilly mislays as he sputters about the hundreds of thousands killed by Saddam (though nevertheless true), is that it would be irresponsible for the world to stand by and allow Saddam to become another Kim Jong-Il. I know it’s hard for brainwashed Lefties like yourself to understand some of the subtler nuances of international relations and realpolitik, but here’s one that’s easier to grasp: Moore’s whinge about the “other” dictators does not take into account the inconvenient fact that 40 million South Koreans are living under a nuclear umbrella. One false move against a certifiably insane dictator like Kim and he starts pushing buttons.
Second of all, the US army is made up of volunteers who are paid handsomely for their efforts. Thankfully, we are not in a position where we need conscription. I know this is another difficult nuance for you, but consider this: there is a difference between the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, where no conscription was required, and the Second World War, where all able-bodied men over 18 were required to serve by law. Were we to be faced with the spectre of another Hitler, then yes, I would send my child to war, and I would go myself if I were young enough. I’m sure O’Reilly would be in agreement.
(I would not have gone to Vietnam, though. That war was mishandled, and a terrible mistake all around. I’m Canadian, by the way, so much of what I’m saying is academic, save for the Hitler scenario.)
Moore claims that he would have gone after the man that killed 3,000 people in New York instead of invading Afghanistan, but when asked by O’Reilly how he would have done that, his only answer is that special forces were kept from the Pakistan border area for two months, where Osama was believed to have been hiding. Moore is being unbearably specious here. The Left likes to claim that the Bush government is bull-in-china-shop trampling all over God’s green earth, but now Moore quibbles at their diplomatic dance with Pakistan, a country that’s a veritable powderkeg of Islamofascism. Again, the nuances might be too much for you, but can you grok that the world is a complex place, that US military might is not necessarily a guarantee of security here there and everywhere? C’mon, the Bushies aren’t stupid (though George himself isn’t overly bright): France and Russia, loathe as they were to have their trade with Saddam cut off, and the UN, loathe as they were to give up stuffing their pockets with US money ear-marked for Saddam’s palaces in the oil for food plan, were at little risk to actually launch a military attack on the US. But US troops in Pakistan and, say, Saudi Arabia? If the Islamofascists and the “Arab street” didn’t like G.I.s in Afghanistan and Iraq, how well do you think footage of U.S. tanks in Saudia Arabian and Pakistani territory would have gone down?
Why the hell do you think the U.S. pulled it’s fucking military out of Saudi Arabia?
Speaking of tiresome, insipid claims:
[color=blue]Iraq, 9/11 Still Linked By Cheney
By Dana Priest and Glenn Kessler
Washington Post
Monday 29 September 2003
In making the case for war against Iraq, Vice President Cheney has continued to suggest that an Iraqi intelligence agent met with a Sept. 11, 2001, hijacker five months before the attacks, even as the story was falling apart under scrutiny by the FBI, CIA and the foreign government that first made the allegation. . .
Not Cheney, who was the administration’s most vociferous advocate for going to war with Iraq. He brought up the connection between Atta and al-Ani again two weeks ago in an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press” in which he also suggested links between Iraq and the Sept. 11 attacks.
Cheney described Iraq as “the geographic base of the terrorists who have had us under assault for many years, but most especially on 9/11.” Neither the CIA nor the congressional joint inquiry that investigated the assault on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon found any evidence linking Iraq to the hijackers or the attacks. President Bush corrected Cheney’s statement several days later.[/color]
[quote=“spook”]Subject: infamous yellowcake ore from Niger
Fact: yellowcake uranium ore is no more lethal than dirt until it’s been laboriously enriched by gaseous separation or centrifuge.
Enrichment requires sophisticated industrial infrastructure and huge amounts of electric power which are easily observable by satellite.
Iraq had no such facilities.
Now what?[/quote]
Provocative. Let’s have some links.
Your wish is my command:
A state selecting uranium for its weapons must obtain a supply of uranium ore and construct an enrichment plant because the U-235 content in natural uranium is over two orders of magnitude lower than that found in weapons grade uranium (>90 percent U-235 U). Ordinary natural uranium contains only 0.72 percent 235 U, the highly fissionable isotope, the rest of the material being largely the much less fissionable isotope U-238 (which cannot sustain a chain reaction). The fissile material must be separated from the rest of the uranium by a process known as enrichment. Uranium enriched to 20 percent or more U-235 is called highly enriched (HEU). Uranium enriched above the natural U-235 abundance but to less than 20 percent is called low-enriched (LEU). Several enrichment techniques have been used.
The earliest successful methods were electromagnetic isotope separation (EMIS), in which large magnets are used to separate ions of the two isotopes, and gaseous diffusion, in which the gas uranium hexafluoride (UF 6 ) is passed through a porous barrier material; the lighter molecules containing 235 U penetrate the barrier slightly more rapidly, and with enough stages significant separation can be accomplished. The first large-scale uranium enrichment facility, the Y-12 plant at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, used EMIS in devices called “calutrons.” The process was abandoned in the United States because of its high consumption of electricity, but was adopted by the Iraqis because of its relative simplicity and their ability to procure the magnet material without encountering technology transfer obstacles. Both gaseous diffusion and EMIS require enormous amounts of electricity.
But you seem to assume that this problem - lumpy, unformed intelligence or data that must be transformed into information - is a new one.
[/quote]
It should be clear that I do not make the assumption that this problem is a new one. Rather, Bush is simply doing what all presidents have done and must do to distill contradictory data into a clear message which can then be used to make an informed decision.
Absolutely. I agree. And indeed he has made some big mistakes.
Do not mistake my defending Bush on the charge of lying as a defence for all the decisions he has made.
Its just that when one accuses someone of lying, it is an important accusation and needs to be backed with evidence. proof that mistakes were made, big mistakes, is not proof of lying.
My own opinion is that this debate over whther Bush lied or not has been beneficial to Bush. Why? Because it focuses all the attention on whther or not a lie was committed (which, according to any reasonable reading of the evidence, it was not) rather than on whether mistakes were made. And any reasonable reading of events will tell you that mistakes were indeed made.
I believe that on this last point - the debate over lies being beneficial to Bush - we might be in total agreement, no?
It was not.
If Bush bypasses or changes the US’s extant data->info process, then he is choosing to make a subjectively-informed decision. And if he acts on the info so acuqired, and he is proven incorrect in his assumption, then it seems reasonable to conclude he made an un-informed decision.
[quote=“imyourbiggestfan”]Absolutely. I agree. And indeed he has made some big mistakes.
Do not mistake my defending Bush on the charge of lying as a defence for all the decisions he has made.
Its just that when one accuses someone of lying, it is an important accusation and needs to be backed with evidence. proof that mistakes were made, big mistakes, is not proof of lying.
My own opinion is that this debate over whther Bush lied or not has been beneficial to Bush. Why? Because it focuses all the attention on whther or not a lie was committed (which, according to any reasonable reading of the evidence, it was not) rather than on whether mistakes were made. And any reasonable reading of events will tell you that mistakes were indeed made.
I believe that on this last point - the debate over lies being beneficial to Bush - we might be in total agreement, no? [referring to flike’s comment following][/quote]
Yes, the left’s discipline - as well as mine at times - is slipping. In order to hold Bush accountable, it seems to me that Democrats owe Americans a cold, clear-headed accounting of Bush’s term.
We Americans must hold Bush accountable come November, and it seems clear that only the Dems can do it. They have a clear duty to lead in this area, and must try harder.
Your point is well-made and well-taken.